Exploring visual journalism

International Space Station

A Russian Soyuz capsule carrying two astronauts after a half-year aboard the International Space Station landed in a remote area outside the town of Dzhezkazgan, Kazakhstan, Friday, June 2, 2017. Russian cosmonaut Oleg Novitsky and French astronaut Thomas Pesquet were on the ISS crew.

NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman, who was born and raised in the Baltimore area, recently completed a stay aboard the International Space Station (ISS). From May to November 2014, he literally had a window on the world as the space station circled in low orbit around Earth.

Now Wiseman is back visiting several locations in the region, including the Maryland Science Center, where he is displaying some of his amazing videos and pictures that he took during his stay on board the ISS.

Jam session in space? Here’s an outer space version of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” from Chris Hadfield, Canadian astronaut and Expedition 35 Commander, who is currently living on board the International Space Station. Hadfield leaves the ISS for Earth Monday. On his Twitter @Cmdr_Hadfield, which has ballooned to 824,605 fans following his journey, he writes: “With deference to the genius of David Bowie, here’s Space Oddity, recorded on Station. A last glimpse of the World.”

Hadfield’s video has had more than a million views since it was posted Sunday.More

In the early days of space flight, the pictures harvested by the National Aeronautic and Space Administration (NASA) were blurry gray images that resembled a bad weather map. With the advent of new technology and better platforms to photograph from, such as the space shuttle and International Space Station, NASA is able to provide us with an amazing viewpoint of Earth.

In honor of Earth Day, view memorizing photos of the blue planet from space.

Two days from now, the International Space Station (ISS) will gain three new tenants, Kevin Ford of the U.S. and Russia’s Oleg Novitskiy and Evgeny Tarelkin. The trio took off early this morning aboard the Soyuz TMA-06M spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan for their five month stay in low-earth orbit. After docking, the new crew will immediately be put to work conducting a spacewalk for repairs and preparing SpaceX’s Dragon capsule for its descent back to Earth.

Last night, SpaceX launched more than 1,000 pounds of supplies bound for the International Space Station on the first of 12 missions in its 1.6 billion USD contract with NASA. The Dragon capsule, propelled by a Falcone9 rocket, will join up with the station in three days bringing clothing, equipment and more science experiments.

UPDATE: Ars Technica is now reporting that one of the nine rockets on the Falcon 9 may have exploded before reaching orbit. Follow that story HERE.